RURAL ROUTES/Margot Ford McMillen

Low Roads Can Lead to Good Places

Last week, my Honda Insight hybrid celebrated two milestones: six
years old and 80,000 miles. Its lifetime MPG has been 57.8 miles.

We celebrated the event with a real blow-out. I mean that a tire
blew out on a windy blacktop road. And then, we celebrated some more
with a new set of tires. A small price to pay. When I got the car, I
was told the 80K mark would mean buying a new set of batteries --
about $2,500 worth -- but Honda has extended the estimated battery
life to 150,000 miles.

Back in 2001, gas was about $1.50 a gallon and there was no tax
credit for hybrids. I bought the car because, I reasoned, I could
take the risk. Owning a hybrid, I could encourage other people to do
the same thing and encourage car makers to figure out how to make
better cars, more efficient. It was the right thing, ethically
speaking, to do.

And there was a bonus: The car could make me an environmental
snob.

Now, several friends have traded their old heaps in for new
hybrids, mostly Priuses, and the manufacturers are, indeed,
advertising fuel efficiency in their sales materials for all cars.
But before I get too smug, I remind myself that no one has ever
complimented my ethical motives when they talk about my car. Instead,
they ask how much money I've saved. In other words, purchasers aren't
making decisions based on virtue.

With fuel costs pushing past $3 per gallon, efficiency has become
an environmental motivator. Efficiency, measured in dollars, has made
it less eccentric to do the right thing. But, ironically, that is
fueling a split in the environmental community.

While environmentalists have for long years argued that their
decision to go green was based on moral and ethical arguments, the
economic argument said that environmentalism didn't make sense.

This argument that economics and environmentalism were at odds
has been applied to every kind of environmental effort. Coal mine
owners argued that it cost too much to fix the land after strip
mining and that it was more efficient to leave it bare. Wood cutters
argued that it cost too much to re-plant the forests. Electric
companies argued that it's too expensive to put scrubbers on
smokestacks.

Now the arguments are changing. One industry after another
realizes that environmentalism makes economic sense. They're putting
skylights in plants to let the sunshine provide light and they're
capturing heat from equipment to pump through the furnaces. They're
adding solar power and windmills and using light bulbs that take less
power. They're replanting forests.

The planet counts it the same whether the waste is reduced at
Wal-Mart or at the corner store. It doesn't mean that you have to
shop at Wal-Mart. This is about saving the planet.

Some environmentalists disagree. They argue that saving the
planet has something to do with motives. If you're making a profit by
doing the right thing, they say, you're doing it wrong.

There is no doubt that, if you can take the risk, it's wonderful
to tool along on the moral high road. Early adopters set examples and
create good will for new ideas. At the same time, most Americans make
decisions based on economics. Whether it's money, bushels,
milliseconds, home runs, or acres, we like to add them up. We like to
keep score.

One idea that has drawn ridicule from environmental moralists is
carbon trading. In carbon trading, a corporation that pollutes by
putting carbon dioxide into the air can buy credits from someone that
absorbs carbon from the air. So a utility plant can buy credits from
a forest owner or a farmer. This has occasionally been compared to
selling pardons for sinning.

There's an element of truth in that comparison. As the vision of
carbon-trading has developed, we imagine that drivers of SUVs or
owners of oversized houses will be able to pay something to grannys
that don't travel. This means, the old-school environmentalists
argue, that the rich can continue to be wasteful and not change their
ways as long as they can pay for it.

But let's imagine this carbon-trading industry from the planet's
perspective. Poor countries that have nothing to sell except rain
forest might collect enough from polluters to keep their forests.
Developers might find that the cost of turning farmland into
subdivisions is too high and turn their sights to re-habbing urban
buildings. The price of sinning -- owning the SUV or ridiculous house
-- might become high enough that owners downsize.

And what if governments were charged a carbon tax for building
new roads without bike lanes, or not building light rail systems, or
for waging war?

Ever wonder how much carbon a fighter jet puts into the air?

Many proposals, mostly coming from Europe, are being kicked
around, and if there is a final scheme it will probably not meet
everyone's standards. It may not give credit for eating local,
shopping with our neighbors or putting in solar panels. At the same
time, it could give us a way to count the carbon costs and savings of
our culture. With or without the ethical snobbery, we need to give it
a good hard look.

Margot Ford McMillen farms and teaches English at a college in
Fulton, Mo. Email margotmcm@socket.net.